Transparency focuses more on the procedural part  and hence proper policies from the respective authorities can help bring transparencies in various practices of management. When we talk about risk management, individual institutions can adopt risk management techniques suitable to their respective organisation. Risk management helps in minimizing the risk and would definitely contribute towards managing financial crisis.

I would certainly its not transparency but failed risk management which has been responsible for the recent financial crisis. Thanks and regards

There will never be anything like what we imagine as transparency. It is questionable whether current regulatory systems or agencies are capable of doing their jobs, with or without necessary regulations. I believe that the recent financial crisis was caused by a lack of necessary regulation, including changes in US regulatory law that removed the firewall between investment banking and savings and loan banking (though I could be wrong). Even with the original law in place, it would have been difficult to prevent the marketing of worthless securities when regulatory agencies can also be understaffed and funded.

However, the really interesting part of your question for me is the part about transparency. We have a belief, generally, that we might be able, politically, to demand it. We believe that such a demand can only be met by making law that requires certain kinds of exposure of what would otherwise be private or secret information. But at what point does the collected information become too massive to assimilate? How does law require the exposure of private thought or unrecorded intention? If you recall Jamie Dimon's testimony before regulators and congress, he simply did not recall anything.

Part of the problem with transparency is that language itself is not transparent, whether uttered or written. Hence I would argue that transparency is a kind of false proposition. 

The modalities to establishing any transaction has a significant relationship to the ability of those at the center of such transaction to be transparent and manage risk effectively to avoid financial crisis. For example loans granted by banks are not actually tied down to the substance of a transaction, banks are more interested in making money (compound interest) hence, where a customer can not retire his loan plus accumulated interest, there is bound to be crisis especially when anticipated returns on loans granted are tied down to other investments. Transparency begins when you can actually account for a transaction and then establish the variances within such accounts in order to identify risk elements for better management.

There is an interesting paper about the incentives and risk taking of financial institutions and how all this is related to the financial crisis:

EUCGF. 2009. European Corporate Governance Forum Statement on Executive Remuneration. Brussels: European Commission.

Dear Mei Chan

Regarding the second question: Transparency is important because it allows for more realistic future expectations, and as a consequence, a better pricing of all financial assets regarding the organization (Stocks, Bonds, CDS, etc).  It reduces asymmetric information on the market, so it allows for a smaller standard deviation of financial assets price. Those are benefits related to the financial markets only. On a different level, provided the  disclosed information quality is very high, most stakeholders can adjust their policies towards the organization in a realistic   manner. A good example is the Greece case. The Greek government has adjusted their statistics and financial reports in order to provide a fake positive economic evolution. While initially it has allowed the government to get cheap loans on the financial markets, the final outcome was a complete loss of financial markets confidence in Greece related assets, and the impossibility to obtain funding for their deficits. Another example of consequences of lack of transparency was Enron and the fall of Arthur Andersen (their auditing company).

Regarding the third question: Risk management is designed to protect an organization from foreseeable environment changes that may pose threats to the viability and survivability of an organization. It may consist of reserves, provisions, insurance, certain practices regarding the exposure to risk factors, and a lot of other measures. Risk management is industry specific, but it has a critical importance in banking and insurance business. In a sense, inappropriate and faulty risk management tools have severely amplified the crisis. If you want to understand why and how  you should research the fall of AIG especially the subsequent CDS related critics.

So, regarding the main question and the first subsequent question, the answer is definitively yes. The lack of transparency and proper risk management have generated the crisis, and have facilitated the contagion of the initial shock, meaning, it has amplified the effects of the financial shock generated by the financial bubble burst .

Best regards

BB

there is a useful literature in management accounting research about calculative culture and risk management and its effectiveness, it will be useful for you.

The lack of transparency starts at the mortgage underwriting standards.  Lax underwriting standards were exacerbated by the safe feeling from consistently raising home values.  No-documentation loans & stated income loans (a.k.a liar loans) permitted an environment of high risk.  Dangerously high true debt-to-income (DTI) ratios combined with low actual disposable incomes, and limited skin-in-the-game (equity) for the borrowers, encouraged unqualified borrowers to default in the absence of an easy home-flipping environment.

Thesis Impact of Mortgage Underwriting on Single Family Home Forecl...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286256177_Global_Financial_Crisis_Exploring_the_Special_Role_of_US_Banks_and_Regulations

Article Global Financial Crisis: Exploring the Special Role of U.S. ...